Public Defenders Are Tightening Belts Because of Steep Federal Budget Cuts

WASHINGTON — Faced with steep cuts to their budgets, federal public defenders around the country have furloughed or laid off hundreds of lawyers and other staff members, spent less on expert witnesses and cut back on case-related travel.

The cuts for the 2014 fiscal year will most likely result in staff reductions of 30 percent to 50 percent, they said. And some public defenders are even considering closing their offices because of a lack of money.

The result, said lawmakers, judges and public defenders, are court delays that might violate defendants’ rights to speedy trials and could lead to the dismissal of criminal cases.

Largely out of the public view, defenders and judges say, the federal public defenders system is buckling under the effects of the $85 billion across-the-board cuts known as the sequester, threatening the integrity of the criminal justice system, which guarantees the right to a court-appointed lawyer for those who cannot afford one. The system was established in 1970 to provided legal representation to indigent defendants; today about 90 percent of federal defendants qualify for court appointed lawyers.

The 81 defender offices across the country, which represent 60 percent of all criminal defendants in the federal court system, have already had their budgets cut by 10 percent because of the sequester and other reductions this year and could face up to a 23 percent cut in 2014. Additional cost-cutting measures may result in a smaller cut, around 10 percent. Although the cuts are widespread across the government, public defenders say the reductions are hitting them particularly hard. Unlike other federal programs, the public defenders say, they have little fat to trim since most of their costs are for staff and rent. Just 10 percent of their budgets are devoted to expert witnesses, investigative costs and travel.

Already, federal defenders said they have cut back on staff members and their workloads.

Almost all offices have had to furlough or lay off workers. In Virginia, a chief public defender said he had to lay off five lawyers, about 10 percent of his staff. Two other staff members retired to help save the office money, while another voluntarily went on active duty in the military.

In Delaware, public defenders had to take 15-day furloughs. In Illinois, a public defender’s office cut two lawyers and a computer technician.

“We were already defending cases with one hand behind our backs before the sequester,” said Jonathan Hawley, a federal public defender in Peoria, Ill. “Now we will have to operate with both hands behind our back.”

The cuts have made for some hard choices.

Michael S. Nachmanoff, a federal public defender for the Eastern District of Virginia, who has represented Somali pirates and illegal arms and drug dealers, said he faced a difficult decision this year when he had to choose between paying staff members or continuing a case without adequate resources.

“It really wasn’t much of a choice,” Mr. Nachmanoff said. “I’m not going to compromise the quality of a case to pay people.”

Mr. Nachmanoff said he had to turn down cases this year for the first time since 2001. One was a death penalty case, three others involved international fraud and another was an arms export control violation.

While federal defenders have had to cut back on the number of cases they handle, the Justice Department is increasing the number of cases it brings to court and also hiring staff.

Photo

Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, said he was concerned about financing for the public defenders program.Credit
Alex Wong/Getty Images

Its annual budget is nearly $28 billion, compared with $1 billion for the federal public defenders program. Since both Republicans and Democrats were reluctant to hurt federal law enforcement, Congress granted the attorney general broad authority to shift money from other programs to pay for salaries and avoid furloughs.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

With the cuts to the public defenders program, courts have to rely more on private court-appointed lawyers to represent indigent clients. These lawyers are paid from the same budget as the public defenders.

But they cost more since they are paid by the hour, and they tend to be less experienced and less effective, according to studies. Federal defenders are salaried employees.

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which held a hearing in July on the impact of cuts to the federal public defenders program, a group of 40 former judges and prosecutors urged Congress to fully finance it.

“These ill-conceived measures undermine not only the Federal Defender system, but the entire federal judiciary, without achieving any real cost savings,” they wrote of the sequestration cuts and the shift to private lawyers.

Members of Congress have also raised concerns about cuts to the public defenders program.

In a bipartisan letter to the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States, which oversees the federal defenders program budget, Senators Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, and Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, raised concerns about the impact of budget cuts on federal defenders program.

“The idea that you can mount a defense with no travel, no expert witnesses or research makes a mockery of the federal court systems,” Mr. Coons said in an interview.

The judicial conference announced on Aug. 16 that it would try to keep staffing of the public defenders program at current levels by delaying payments to court-appointed private lawyers and reducing by $15 an hour the rate at which they were paid.

The move would limit the 2014 cuts to the federal defenders program to about 10 percent, instead of 23 percent.

Even so, Judge William D. Traxler Jr., chairman of the judicial conference’s executive committee, called the measures “undesirable” and said they could “impact the delivery of justice.”

“But they are necessary to avoid permanent damage to the federal defender program,” he wrote.

Mr. Coons said he remained concerned.

“It speaks to the harsh budget environment that we’re in when we are celebrating just a 10 percent cut,” he said.

A version of this article appears in print on August 24, 2013, on Page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Public Defenders Are Tightening Belts Because of Steep Federal Budget Cuts. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe